INCOMING Social Welfare secretary Judy Taguiwalo on Friday said she will review the plantilla of the Department of Social Welfare and Development after she discovered that while the agency had 29,000 workers, it only had 2,000 permanent employees.
“We have 29,000 workers at the Department of Social Welfare and Development, but only 2,000 are employees,” said Taguiwalo whom President-elect Rodrigo Duterte named as his DSWD secretary as a nominee of the National Democratic Front.
“I want to look at this because several of my students at the University of the Philippines said they [were employed under a] memorandum of agreement only so I want to look into this,” she said.
“I’ve been announced as secretary only for 10 days so I am still in process of reviewing. I have yet to receive the report of [outgoing] Secretary Corazon Soliman,” she said.
Taguiwalo also pledged to deliver prompt and immediate aid to the public.
“Timely and nurturing service because I know the services are there but the timing is quite late. Right now drought is almost over but the help on the farmers is not yet there,” she said when asked what would be her focus as DSWD chief.
But she denied saying in a radio interview that Soliman was a hypocrite. “I was talking about the policies and action.”
She was referring to a June 3 radio interview when she vowed that she would never hide street dwellers just so they will not be seen by visiting dignitaries as was done during the visit of Pope Francis and the summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation nations.
“I don’t think the incoming president is going to hide the urban poor communities [when] international dignitaries are here. We very much criticize that,” Taguiwalo said in an interview with dzMM, adding that such actions is “mere hypocrisy.”
Taguiwalo pointed out that while the government’s conditional dole program, more popularly known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program will continue, it is still a temporary solution to the rooted problem of poverty in the country.